Leinster 48 Swansea 19
Leinster got over a slow start to drive past Swansea and straight into the Heineken Cup quarter-finals tonight.
Having laboured in the first half hour and trailed the Welsh side by 6-3, Leinster then upped the tempo to turn the game on its head and run in eight tries with Denis Hickie scoring a hat-trick as Swansea fell apart.
The result means Leinster are in the last eight and need a point in Bristol next week to earn a home tie.
Their pre-match preparations, however, were thrown into chaos by the late withdrawal through injury of full-back Girvan Dempsey and lock Leo Cullen.
Gordon D'Arcy was switched from the wing with David Quinlan coming off the bench to replace him while Aidan McCullen came into the second row.
But that did not stop scrum-half Brian O'Meara kicking the Irish side in front with a second-minute penalty against the Welshmen.
Gavin Henson got the Whites on level terms four minutes later and it was no more than they deserved.
With qualification out of reach and having been thumped 51-10 at home by Leinster at St Helens, there was little pressure on Swansea to put up any resistance against the unbeaten group leaders.
But Leinster found themselves firmly on the back foot in the first half as Swansea took the game to their hosts. When O'Meara missed a 17th-minute penalty for the Irish side, Welsh confidence grew and Henson actually put Swansea in front 10 minutes later with his second successful kick of the night.
Leinster had been restricted to sporadic breaks out of their own half but Henson's kick seemed to sting the forwards into action and their support play for speed merchants such Hickie, Brian O'Driscoll and Shane Horgan turned the tide.
The cracks began to show in the Swansea camp when Colin Charvis was sin-binned in the 30th minute and then O'Driscoll's break was finished off by number eight Victor Costello for the first try in the 33rd minute. O'Meara converted to put Leinster in front at 10-6.
Flanker Keith Gleeson then made the most of Horgan's great run to touch down in the corner in the 37th minute before Costello streaked upfield and turned provider for Hickie to score a try in first-half injury-time.
Neither try was converted but Leinster had turned a 3-6 deficit on the half-hour into a 20-6 half-time lead and Swansea went in at the break barely concealing their shock.
The gaps in the Welsh side's defence got wider at the restart and when O'Meara's box kick from behind a ruck just inside his own half and bounced down the touchline, Hickie ran in unopposed for his second try of the night.
O'Meara again missed the conversion and Swansea briefly threatened a revival when Henson skipped through an unusually porous Leinster defence and sidestepped O'Driscoll and Gleeson to score under the posts.
Converting his own score, Henson then exchanged penalties with O'Meara to take the score to 28-16.
But again, Leinster regrouped from deep and McCullen rounded off a sweeping move to score a 52nd-minute try that went unconverted.
Swansea buckled once more and were punished when Henson's attempted kick to touch was gathered just inside the line by Hickie who raced down the left to complete his hat-trick of tries on the hour.
While O'Meara's kicking form again deserted him at the conversion, Henson completed a clean sweep of scoring with a 62nd-minute drop goal to add to his penalties, try and conversion.
It left the score at 38-19 and although Swansea finished the game enjoying the majority of possession, they never looked like troubling Leinster.
Swansea saw substitute hooker Chris Wells sin-binned in the dying seconds but there was still time for replacement back row Des Dillon and then D'Arcy to cross the try line to complete another night of Welsh misery.
PA